


Black and White

by BrushDog



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Blindfolds, Dubious Consent, Other, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrushDog/pseuds/BrushDog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The colors that sank into Sei's skin, black and white, are the colors that defined the world he knew, the colors that brought him comfort and solace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black and White

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on some headcanon that I chatted with [Tigerine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sealink) about aages ago. Posted for DMMD rarepair week for AllMate day! Beta'd by Harukami.
> 
> Also it looks like somehow the unedited version of this got posted initially. It's updated now.

They pull the tubes from his veins and he isn't even lying when he thinks of how the sensation hardly hurts anymore now that it's become dull and familiar. Carefully, his eyelids are released, his eyes allowed to close and block out the harsh light of the operating table lamps and the fluorescent glow of the room. He can still see the afterimages on his eyelids in bright, nauseating reds and yellows. He barely keeps his eyes open, just enough so that the rush of colors doesn't leave him nauseous. 

They murmur over him. Something about the results, something about the plans for the next day's tests. Had he been paying attention before, he might have some idea of what it entails, but he's long since lost the curiosity that would have lent itself to keeping his ears open when he leaves his body bereft for the day. Someone will submit a report, someone will type up a clean summary with points of data, projections, and an intended road map for their next sessions. He knows because he's accessed the reports from yesterday's session, from the day before that, for weeks and months stretching back for as long as life has burdened his heart with beating and his lungs with breathing. 

In a way, the stark black and write letters are comforting. In this way, he can come to understand the men and women around him who give him no sign of comfort otherwise. Through snatches of data, surveillance cameras with fuzzy colorless images, the static recording of a planted microphone, conversations across emails, coils, and all other messages, he knows more about them than they might imagine. 

He wonders what they would say if he revealed it. If he allowed them to see just a glimpse of his escapes, of the places where he finds solace while their work is done, while they tirelessly twist and pull his body to its limits to see what the result will be. 

He wonders, but he knows that he can never know. To find the answer would tell them what he has seen. 

Toue has never restricted him, has never set a barrier to the network that he cannot overcome, and he knows well enough what it would look like if his father were to try. Instead, his activities are calmly noted in digital text that he has the freedom to read. "Demonstrates a tendency to engage in activities of network consciousness when pain thresholds of current experimentation exceed normalized endurance limitations," is what they've written. "Assessing Potential Response for Network Consciousness Interface with Confidential Data" is the name of the meeting that appears on Toue's calendar. 

Even though his trials are suspended at that time, he still escapes to listen, to observe, to know what his future might hold. In the end, this freedom is one that he is allowed. Though the researchers argue about the concern of what he might do with the data they've gathered. It poses a risk, they say, if he would betray them, they could lose everything. Toue listens carefully until all gathered parties have expressed their views before he speaks. He chides them gently, like a father speaking to a worried child. He explains quite simply that Sei is as a son to him, that he could not imagine that someone so precious to him would think to cross him in such a way, would think to bring ruin to everything he's worked toward. 

Listening through the conference room's AV system, Sei can see this theater for what it is. It's a demonstration on Toue's part, not only for his researchers, but also for Sei himself. Toue wishes to reassure him that he has trust in Sei. That he will allow Sei this freedom to see what might come of it. It isn't that Toue is unaware of the risk that Sei poses to him, it's that he welcomes the challenge that such a risk would pose to the game he plays. 

Sei listens, and he cannot say whether or not he feels that Toue's trust is misplaced. He is grateful for the gift that he's been given. He is grateful for the escape that he's allowed, but his gratitude is not his comfort. He bears no ill will towards his father, but Toue's love for him has always felt distant. In the end, he leaves the meeting before its conclusion, knowing full well that none of those gathered will spare a thought to questioning Toue once his mind has been made up.

When he returns to his body, focusing more clearly on what his eyes can see, he finds that he is not alone. Amid the brightly colored piles of forgotten gifts and children's toys are two spots of black. Points of data on the network that allow him his escape.

Welter lifts his head as Sei's eyes focus on the room around him, the splashes of yellows, pinks, and blues gaining definition from the blurry mess that they were. He rumbles softly and pads over to Sei's chair on silent paws. Sei can see the fading trail of a message sent to Welter's master's coil. So they were waiting for him. He knows they don't like to be kept waiting.

Carefully, he pushes himself down from the chair, resting on his knees as he holds his hands out to the lion-shaped machine. Hersha slides forward as Welter leans into Sei's embrace, winding a sleek and cold body about his waist and chest.

"Hello," he says, even though he knows that they have no speak program configured, that they cannot communicate beyond a mimicry of what a lion or snake would be, growls and purrs, hisses and rasps, the sounds of manmade beasts. But that brings him comfort.

He knows their coding as intimately as their masters know his body. He knows what actions will provoke a response, what actions will trigger the AllMate's AI to display pleasure, contentment, pride. He strokes his fingers through the fur of Welter's mane and knows that his fingers will feel the rumble of a low purr when they hit the point where his artificial skin covers his casing. He slides his hand against Hersha's scales and knows when a tail will wind about his wrist, holding on for a point of balance that is, in the end, unnecessary. Whatever pain they might bring him, he knows to expect, he anticipates. Unlike the unpredictable actions of the researchers and their experiments, the unknown variable of what ends they might push him to in order to gain favor in Toue's eyes, Welter and Hersha are something predictable, something familiar.

Welter's tongue laps against his neck, rough and wet, and he doesn't flinch. Hersha's coils slide beneath his shirt and he doesn't shiver. He wonders if this is the game they're to play today. Whether they'd find it interesting to see what expression he'd make when his body is embraced by the beasts that they control. They've done this sort of thing before, but even their interests aren't always so fleeting.

Welter continues to lap against his neck and chest, leaving the skin there red from the rough texture of his tongue. One paw presses against his chest and he lies back, pale fingers tangled in the weight of the AllMate's mane. Hersha has wound about his chest entirely now, smooth scales rubbing against skin, pressing his shirt up to expose his belly to the chill of the room.

The door opens, and they enter.

"Yahoo, Sei."

"Good evening, Sei-san."

"Virus, Trip, good evening." Sei looks up to see them both standing over him, smiles curving over their lips in mirror images, shocks of blonde hair standing out in contrast to the dark of the endlessly starry sky that floats above his room.

"My, it seems that we may have caught you at a bad time," Virus remarks, glancing down to the tableau that Sei makes with the AllMates against the floor. Welter's affections have knocked Sei's hat off and it sits, forgotten, a little ways away from where Sei lies, the lion machine's weight rested on his chest, between his legs, careful to avoid the serpent machine's tight embrace.

"It looks fun," Trip adds with a grin.

"Ah, I think they just missed me."

"Is that so?" Virus asks. The way his smile widens confirms what Sei had suspected of their game for the day.

"Mhm," Sei replies easily. He strokes his hands against black scales and black fur, letting them witness the ease of the gesture. "We get along quite well, don't we?"

The AllMates do not reply, or rather, they are given no instruction to reply. Instead, Welter's weight against him lessens as the AllMate shifts back. Hersha pulls against his chest and he sits obediently, looking to Virus in question.

"If that is the case, then it would be very rude of me to interrupt," he explains, crouching down on the floor next to Sei. "But I'm certain that Sei-san wouldn't mind if we stayed to observe? It is, after all, very rare for us to have a chance to see you like this."

"Right, right," Trip adds. "We want to see lots of you."

"I don't mind," Sei says. He meets Virus's gaze, sees Virus's lips curve into another smile, and watches his eyes carefully. Though his irises are unnaturally bright, a green and blue that almost seems like the color of the sea's foam, at their center lies an empty void. An unending darkness, unchanging and, in its own way, predictable.

"I'm very glad to hear that. To that end, there is one favor that I'd like to ask of you, Sei-san."

"What is it?"

Virus reaches into his pocket, producing a long black strip of cloth. "We know that Sei-san's eyes are under a lot of strain as of late. That's why, out of consideration for your condition, I'd like for you to wear this."

"Keep it on the whooole time," Trip adds, kicking at one of the brightly colored stuffed toys that's fallen from Sei's pile.

"Then, may I?" Virus asks. The gesture is empty, of course. He doesn't wait for Sei's reply before he reaches to wrap the blindfold around his eyes, but Sei inclines his head towards him anyway. The pressure it puts against his hair is like a dull ache in his skull. But, concealed like this, he can allow his eyelids to twitch with the sensation, if only a little. He wonders if Virus is aware, if that kindness had been intentional.

"That's very kind of you, Virus, Trip."

"Oh no, it's nothing at all," Virus says, and Sei can hear the brush of cloth and the change in the sound of his voice as he rises. "Then, by all means, please continue."

His sight restricted, Sei sees only black. Yet, if he lets himself slip only a little, the fragile white spiderweb of his network appears in a warm glow against his eyelids. He can touch on Hersha, Welter. He can see the relentlessly flickering lights of their AI processes running, the messages sent from Virus's coil, from Trip's coil, that change directives, issue orders.

In this web of black and white, he sits at the center. This is a game he knows very well. He knows which caresses will come. Which touches bring pain and which bring pleasure. Quiet, content, Sei allows himself the freedom of this darkness and he finds comfort.


End file.
